


the sea beyond the sky (suggests there's something more)

by cynical_optimist



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, because i adore both of these characters, cuteness! only a little bit of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 08:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12766674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: “People don’t usually want to be friends with me, since I usually kill them,” she says. “I like that I didn’t kill you, though.”“I appreciate it,” he replies.-A conversation in a jail cell.





	the sea beyond the sky (suggests there's something more)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking a short break for the actual, somewhat longer fic I'm writing for this fandom because there isn't enough about their friendship in the tag and there should be. Thanks to [Lauren](http://call-this-a-mask.tumblr.com) and [Kathi](http://hotchocolatenthusiast.tumblr.com) for screaming about this show with me and putting up with me sending them sad snippets.
> 
> This is set somewhere between their dance party and everyone stumbling back to the police station for the apparent orgy. Title from List's [Veil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCof1BDmokU).

“So,” Bart says, closing the door to her cell behind her. “What else was in your childhood?”

Panto looks up from where he’d been sitting on the floor next to the bed, fiddling with his cuffs. “Sorry?” he asks.

“Well, earlier we were dancing, right, like you did when you were a kid?”

“Something like that,” he says. “The music was different, and usually one of the partners wasn’t in a metal cage, but yes, just about.”

“So what else?” Bart asks. “Was it  _ all dancing _ ?” Her eyes light up, and she throws herself down onto the floor with more paper to colour on.

“There were things other than dancing,” Panto says. “My sister and I used to play together.”

“You got a sister? What’s that like?”

“It was-- she’s annoying, sometimes, but we’re close. When we were small, we’d take turns saving each other from imaginary monsters.” Despite himself, Panto finds a smile tugging at his  lips at the memory. “We’d take our practice scissors and run out into the forest, away from our tutors, and different plants would be the monsters. We both liked doing the saving best, and we’d get into the worst fights about it.”

“Wow,” Bart says, sketching again. “Sounds funner than I had.”

Panto swallows, remembering what she’d told him. Tests and experiments from people who didn’t understand how she worked. “Yes, I suppose so,” he says.

“When’d you stop?” she asks.

“Stop?”

“You said used to-- when did you stop playing like that?”

Thinking, Panto pauses. “I had to be around twelve, perhaps a little younger. Then it was all about horses and extra lessons and diplomacy.”

“Oh,” Bart says. “That’s sad.”

“Not really; she and I still spar when we can, and when she was old enough we’d go questing for  _ real _ monsters.”

“That makes more sense, I guess.” For a few moments, she’s silent, and Panto looks up to the ceiling, studying for what feels like the millionth time the patterns in the cracks.

Absently, Panto wonders when Dirk Gently and his associates will return; it must be reaching the middle of the moon’s course, but the station has been empty but for the two of them for hours now.

“Is it just her, then?” Bart asks. “Who you got back home?”

“No,” Panto says. “My father is there, too; he’s more distant, but he tries to be a fair ruler to our people. And I have friends, of course, and...”

“And?” Bart prompts. “Do you got a best friend? Ken is my best friend, I think, except he’s my only friend so I don’t know how much that counts.”

“I think it counts,” Panto replies. “Though I doubt he’s your only friend.”

“Well, yeah he is,” Bart says. “I mean, he’s the only person I’ve talked to more than--” She pauses, narrowing her eyes at him. “Are  _ you _ my friend?”

“Are you saying that you’re not?” Panto asks, and he can’t quite help the tug of fondness he feels when she leaps to her feet and claps, all knees and elbows like a baby gazelle.

Panto can imagine why she doesn’t have many friends, he supposes, especially if she’d truly murdered every person she encountered since she was a child. Being stuck like this, though, it’s near impossible to not feel fondness for her and her odd little mannerisms. In some ways, she reminds him of Litzibitz when she was a child-- all wonder and open-eyed beauty.

“People don’t usually want to be friends with me, since I usually kill them,” she says. “I like that I didn’t kill you, though.”

“I appreciate it,” he replies. ”There is too much back home I’d miss.”

“Oh yeah,” Bart says, and sits down again. “You didn’t answer-- do you got a best friend?”

“Yes, I do,” Panto says.

“Who are they? Did you play with swords with them, too?”

Panto considers, for a moment, the prudence of telling her this, now, when he’s told no one but Litz in years. She’s not affiliated with anything in Wendimoor, though, and she seems genuinely interested in being his friend.

She is, despite everything, likely to be trustworthy.

“His name is Silas,” he says. “He is the son of my family’s enemies, the Dengdamors. If our families found out, we’d be torn apart and would never see each other again.”

“Wow,” Bart says. “Why do your families care who your friends are?”

“It’s a complicated situation, diplomatically,” Panto answers. “It has been for years. And Silas and I-- we are not simply friends.”

Bart looks up, eyes narrowed. “What does that mean? Like-- you’re also enemies while you’re friends? Because I watched that in a movie, while I was with Ken, and it didn’t look very nice.”

“No,” Panto sighs. He doesn’t know why he’s telling her this, except that he misses him, and he never expected to be away this long, and if he doesn’t tell someone it’ll just fester inside him forever. “We are lovers.”

“Lovers?” Bart’s nose scrunches, then smooths. “Oh, like a couple. You should’a just said that.”

“Yes,” Panto answers. “Like that.”

She hums. “Do you have a picture of him, then? I saw that in another movie-- people who were together carried around pictures of each other, so they wouldn’t forget.”

Panto shakes his head. “For a while, I wanted to have a likeness of him made, but it was far too risky.”

“That’s stupid.”

“It is.”

“Does he make you happy, then?”

Panto blinks. “I beg your pardon?”

She shrugs. “You looked sad when you were talking about him, so I wanted to know if he ever makes you happy?”

“All the time,” Panto answers. “Sometimes it feels like he’s the only one who can. It’s only that I miss him, so remembering when we were together--”

“You’ll get back to him,” Bart says, “when the universe wants you to.”

“Perhaps you can ask the universe to hurry things up, then.”

Bart shrugs again, turning back to her drawing. “Don’t work like that, I told you just before.”

“I know,” Panto says, and leans his head back against the bed. He sighs, closing his eyes. All of a sudden, the dancing from earlier seems years away, and Wendimoor eons. He should have taken more care with his goodbye to Silas, should have thought to do more than wave at his friends and ruffle Litzibitz’s hair in farewell. When he’d imagined this, he’d always pictured returning in a blaze of glory, Dirk Gently and the boy in tow. He’d thought he’d be able to solve his home’s problems and mend the rift between their families, sweep Silas off his feet in front of all who dared to keep them apart.

He’d never imagined sitting in a cell, disarmed and powerless  in a land he has no knowledge of, with no hope of even finding his way back home to spend the last few days or weeks with those he loves before the mage kills them all.

He should never have left in the first place. He should have listened to Silas, optimistic though he is.

“Hey,” Bart says again, and Panto opens her eyes to see her reaching between their cells, a few sheets of paper in hand. She can’t quite reach, and pops open the cell door just enough to push the paper through his bars. 

He reaches out and takes them. It’s the same childlike scrawl as her other pictures, and he takes a moment to study them.

“That’s you and your sister,” she says. “And your dad way in the background, ‘cause you said he’s, like, distant, and stuff.”

Panto smiles, chest warming. “I see,” he says.

“And the other one-- see?” Panto flips to the other sheet. “That’s Silas, so you can have a picture of him. I dunno what he looks like, but I figure you know that’s him, and people who see it don’t, so it’s safe, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Panto says, throat tight. The picture doesn’t look anything like Silas, but it threatens to bring tears to his eyes nevertheless. “That does make sense. You have my eternal gratitude, Bartine.”

“Aw,” she says, kicking at the cell. “S’just some pictures.”

“I know,” he replies. “Thank you.”

She steps back into her cell and closes the door, and he looks at the pictures and thinks again of the child’s drawings scrawled all over that world. If those sketches could be his home, despite their crudeness, then these could, too, these gifts from a murderous stranger who had somehow become his friend.

Perhaps, then, they can tide him over until he finally returns home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat to me on my tumblr @boxesfullofthoughts ^_^


End file.
